ascribe it to the Celts, who inhabited the country before the Germans, and are as convenient to antiquaries as the Pelasgians to historians. The origin of the name itself, “the Old-king,” is doubtful. Some think it was the site of an ancient court of justice. But the name may have been given from the old quartz ramparts which crown the summit, suggesting to the peasantry the idea of a king of the giants turned into a mountain, like the classical Atlas.
Remains of the Castle of Vlbel.
If we descend from the Taunus again to Frankfort, and take the Main-Weser railroad as far as Vilbel, we have an opportunity of visiting the castle there, and ascending to the eminence of Bergen, which rises gradually from the Frankfort plain, and though not a part of the Taunus, may well be included in a notice of it.
Vilbel is a long, straggling village on the sluggish and often muddy Nidda. Of its castle little is left but a square tower, bridge, and gate, and the remains of some walls. The race of the knights of Vilbel was first heard of at the beginning of the thirteenth, and were extinct in the seventeenth century. They belonged to the household of the Imperial palace at Frankfort, and their arms are believed to exist on a monument of the Roman king Günther, of Schwarzburg, who was buried in 1349 in the Frankfort Cathedral. The knights of Vilbel had the usual character of the knights of those days, and we find one Bechtram obtaining a nickname by plundering the market-boat between Frankfort and Mainz. The Archbishop of Trêves, Werner of Falkenstein, obtained the castle by purchase in 1399, and rebuilt it after its destruction. His arms are still to be seen over the gateway. The misdoings of Bertram von Vilbel, captain of the Frankfort mercenaries, and his execution, have been already noticed. The castle was for a long time in possession of Frankfort, then of Mainz. When, in 1796, the Austrian army, under General Wartensleben, was retreating from the French to the left bank of the Nidda, the French General Kleber required of the Mainz authorities the restoration of the Nidda